When an organization has under 10,000 square feet (sf) of office space, a single individual can typically manage the space, often without any technical assistance. For example, the individual can manage the space and who is working in various areas of the space using something as simple as a notepad our handwritten ledger. However, large corporations and other large organizations often have hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space, or more, to house their organization's employees, retail or consumer facing operations, corporate management, divisions, and other support infrastructure. Some large organizations have as much as two billion square feet or more of real estate and/or space under management. Naturally, when so much office space is under management, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for an individual or individuals to manage the office space without technical assistance.
As a result of this need for automated management tools, software tools have been developed to help manage office space. One known software application, CenterStone Software by Manhattan Software, Inc. of Milford, Mass., provides a set of space management tools focused on spatial management of the workplace. These tools include tools for how space is planned (from planning through commissioning), utilized, changed (MAC: moves/adds/changes), owned (or leased) and analyzed and the assets that are associated with each space. More information is available at www (dot) centerstonesoft (dot) com.
However, because of inherent limitations and the limited capabilities of known solutions, it is very difficult and tedious, although not impossible, to develop theoretical models of future occupancy driving higher utilization of space involving moving a subset of an organization's employees from one location to another, either within the same building or another, also known as restacking. That is, when a division or department moves locations, e.g., from one floor of a building to another, or to an entirely new building or location, the space management software or database must be updated to reflect the new location(s) of the relevant division(s), department(s), employee(s), etc. There is presently no convenient way to do this other than by selecting each individual atomic location (i.e., office, conference room, cubicle, and/or workstation), and reassigning each atomic location from one subdivision of the organization to another, or to release the locations due to the organization no longer using that location.